We continued on through Montana and stopped in Missoula, which I personally thoroughly enjoyed because I got to revisit the lovely town that I briefly called home many years ago. We visited Butterfly Herbs, which was one of the only places in town I spent my money back then. I got huckleberry ice cream and "Evening in Missoula" tea, my favorites. I spied the Union Bar down the road and reminisced about the best nights of dancing west of the Mississippi, and we went into a thrift store and found absolutely nothing good.
We departed and I drove most of the way to Spokane, Washington. We were driving through a beautiful mountain pass where I became distracted and overwhelmed by the beauty, whilst also having to look mostly at the road, when Dave happened to notice we had 16 miles till empty. He looked up the nearest gas station and it was 17 miles away. So I drove slowly up the hills and mostly coasted down them and we rolled into the most expensive gas station yet. Elisabeth drove the rest of the way to Spokane.
Dan was very set on doing laundry, so we dropped him off and Dave, Elisabeth and I ate dinner down the street. We got Sake and beer and noodles and had a pleasant time together. The weather looked like it might get bad, and Dave had low-key been pushing for a hotel the past couple days, so we caved and ended up at a Best Western in Ritzville, WA. It was so lovely and we were all thankful for the beautiful beds and clean towels and sheets. There was a pool, and we enjoyed splashing about it spastically after having been sedentary for most of the past few days. There was even laundry provided, so we cleaned our soiled (just dirt) clothes, took showers, had a delicious continental breakfast and watched part of Titanic, where we learned that Dan seemingly knows everything about the history of the Titanic. We wanted to stay for the naked lady scene but we got on the road.
Don and Harris of Darlingside had been about 3-4 hours behind us the whole journey, but since we took our sweet time that morning eating crispy potatoes and waffles and exercising in the quaint gym provided by the Best Western, they had essentially caught up ! They had the idea to meet up in North Bend, WA to have lunch together at Tweede's Diner, which is the legendary diner in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks". This was very fun to meet up with Don and Harris because we'd had the same road trip mere hours apart from each other and had been watching each others instagrams and keeping in touch, but now we had each other in real life! We all got burgers of various sorts, tried the best cherry pie and set on our merry ways to Seattle - our final cross-country destination. The rest of Darlingside was waiting for Don and Harris to arrive with all the gear, and we wanted to check into our airbnb.
We drove through golden fields, and suddenly we were in beauteous mountains. We stopped at this wildly epic highway view along the Columbia River. Ran around for a few minutes and then drove the rest of the way to Seattle. Got to our AirBnB and it was so lovely!
The venue was also very beautiful - Fremont Abbey Arts - Medium sized, wooden floor, high ceilings, beautiful sound, small stage and lovely green room. We are so thankful to be playing these magnificent rooms opening for Darlingside. Its truly so awesome. We had another awesome sound guy and great sound check. Elisabeth tried new harmonies on Red Neck Yaught Club that really make the chorus come to life. I got incredibly nervous for no real reason, and was also so excited to see two of my best friends Lizz and Julia, who live in Port Townsend and were on their way.
We had a lovely show, with a very responsive welcoming crowd. The nerves never really went away, but I was able to push through and still have a really fun time on stage. I think the harmonies sounded especially good, and the stage banter came easily. We played a short 30 min set - Benny, Quarantine, Cigarette, What Can I Do, Red Neck Yaught Club, Gold, End of Your Song.
I was so happy to hang with Julia and Lizz after, and especially to get to feel Julia's baby bump!! She is such a cute pregnant lady!!
Darlingside also sounded the best I've ever heard them, and we enjoyed their set until we realized everything was about to close and we were quite hungry. So me, Lizz, Julia, Dave and Elisabeth got tacos across the street at a really yummy spot. We came back for Darlingside's last 5 songs, and also to Maria Keeler in the audience! She had flown from Maine that morning and Dan had picked her up at the airport. She will be with us the rest of the trip!
We had a silly hang in the green room with everyone after. Harris has been working on his third harmony to Gold, and at one point everyone was singing Gold in three part harmony, while substituting the much too wordy lyrics with Vanessa Carlton's "making my way downtown". It was 2am for Maria, so we departed and went back to our cozy temporary home. Lucky lucky us.
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